Improve Yourself 5: Let Failure Lead You to Change

This continues our series on improving yourself to get the biggest raises & best promotions

Paul had a promising career in management. Unfortunately, he made a major mistake at work one day creating what one worker perceived as a hostile workplace. The company’s zero-tolerance policy required they terminate him. He had not held a responsible job in five years. He wouldn’t let go of what he felt was the injustice of it. He retold the story every time we met. It didn’t make him happy. He didn’t learn from it. He relived that experience so often that it defined his identity.

Becoming Champions Requires Getting Up From Failure

In the last post, we explained that you will make mistakes. We all do. We also highlighted that sometimes we let that failure derail us and make us think that we are destined to fail. This continues our review of a speech given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, an aviation executive and Church leader. He said

“No one likes to fail. And we particularly don’t like it when others—especially those we love—see us fail. We all want to be respected and esteemed. We want to be champions. But we mortals do not become champions without effort and discipline or without making mistakes…our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward.”

Let Mistakes and Failure Lead You to Change

Dieter Uchtdorf highlights two possible responses to failure and mistakes. He says

“That does not mean that we should be comfortable with our weaknesses, mistakes, or sins. But there is an important difference between the sorrow for [mistakes or failure] that leads to [change] and the sorrow that leads to despair.”

Santana taught “He that does not learn from the past is doomed to repeat it.” You can learn from your mistakes and change

• How you act
• How you think
• Your personality
• Your conversations and confrontations
• Your perspectives and paradigms

Great books teach you how.

Friday we  share Dieter Uchtdorf’s suggestions about what to do with change

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.